


Five Minutes

by Imogen_Penn



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/M, Just Kiss Already!, Whump, adorable space warriors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:15:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25995073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/pseuds/Imogen_Penn
Summary: Cara Dune and Din Djarin get a little bit closer...five minutes at a time.
Relationships: Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin / Cara Dune
Comments: 17
Kudos: 107





	Five Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> In response to a prompt from @sassygirl579 over on tumblr. Thanks!!

“Mando!” it was half a greeting and half an expression of surprise. Since she had joined the guild, she got around the galaxy a fair amount, but the Galaxy was a big place. To say that running into someone she knew on Ord Mantell was unlikely was a vast understatement.

She saw the moment that his whirling surprise transitioned to recognition as he turned and spotted her across the street. He nodded as she crossed to meet him.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said with a grin. She could practically see his raised eyebrow under his helmet.

“Looking for me Dune?” he asked skeptically.

“Don’t flatter yourself Mando,” she said, clapping a hand against his shoulder, “this is an honest to goodness coincidence. What are the odds, hey?”

He cut his eyes towards the closed pram that was floating to his right, “Not as long as you might think,” he said with exasperation.

She tilted her head at him in question.

He let out a long suffering sigh. “No leads on the kid,” he said, moving forward down the street so that they didn’t draw any unwanted attention by standing still for too long, “Thought I’d show him a map, see where he wanted to go.”

She let out a short laugh as she fell into step beside him, “Boy, you’ve really got nothing, hey?”

He leveled an impatient glare at her, clearly discernable by the angle of his helmet and the set of his shoulders. “Yeah, well, who knows what the kid can do. I thought it was worth a try.”

“Still a pretty big coincidence that the kid flailed at Ord Mantell on the map though,” she said.

“No,” he said shortly, “He wasn’t flailing. The little womp rat just wanted to see you.”

Her stride broke as she almost stopped in her tracks, “You think he knew I would be here?”

“He seems to know way too much for his own good,” he ground out, sounding like nothing so much as a frustrated parent of a curious toddler.

She grinned at his tone. “Look, I’ve got a job to do here, and there’s no point in exposing the kid on the street. Tell me where the _Crest_ is and I’ll come by later tonight.”

He nodded at her and, with a few taps at his gauntlet, sent a set of coordinates to her comm unit.

“Well,” she said, as they reached the end of the street, “nice running into you Mando, but my time is up. If I don’t get moving, I’ll miss my target.”

He nodded at her as she tossed him a two fingered salute and walked off in the opposite direction.

She shook her head with a smile. It had been surprisingly nice to see him, even if just for a few minutes. But she tossed off the feeling and refocused as she pulled out her blinking tracking fob. She had a job to do.

+++++

She didn’t end up making it to the _Crest_. She got the job done, but attracted a bit too much attention and had to get off planet in a hurry with no time for more than a quick holo to explain why she couldn’t come by.

Based on the astronomical odds of them running into each other on Ord Mantell, she probably should have given a bit more credence to his theory that the kid made it happen.

When she saw the two of them walking towards her in a backwater cantina on Taris, she was ready to believe.

“Dune,” he said as he collapsed into a seat next to her. He looked tired.

“Mando,” she said, “and kid.” The kid was sitting up in his pram, his wide eyes focused on her with excitement. She reached out a finger to poke at the kid’s round tummy, and he chirped delightedly and waved his arms at her.

“So,” she said, giving into the child’s wordless demands and picking him up to tuck into the cradle of one arm, “How did he get you here this time?”

He sighed deeply and slid a bounty puck across the table towards her, “If I had to guess, I’d say that you’re here after the same job.”

She checked the puck. He was right.

“Nice work kid,” she said, without any real malice, “now I’m going to have to go find another job.”

The kid looked up at her with wide and trembling eyes, his lower lip sticking out in an exaggerated pout.

“The job’s yours,” he said quickly, “We can find another.”

“Don’t be stupid Mando,” she said, “You two are the ones on the run. I work for Greef. I can always come by another puck.”

There was a brief staring contest between them across the table, but she won in the end, and he slid to puck back towards himself with a nod.

“Thank you,” he said.

“No problem Mando, happy to help,” she chucked the kid under the chin as his sad eyes melted back into his usual bright expression.

“Din,” he said in a low voice.

She looked at him in surprised, “What?”

“It’s Din,” he said again, “You know that.”

She looked at him for a long moment, and he held her gaze steadily. She did know his name, but something he told her when he thought he was dying didn’t seem like the sort of thing to bring up again. In fact, she really didn’t like thinking about that particular incident at all, and she didn’t want to interrogate the reasons for that too closely.

“Din,” she agreed finally with a nod, and then she cut her eyes to the side as she caught movement at the entrance to the cantina, “I’m about to do you another favour.”

“What that?” he cocked his head curiously, leaning in ever so slightly.

“I’m going to watch the kid while you take care of that,” she gestured subtly to the bounty who had just walked into the bar.

“Thanks,” he said, sounding a bit less tired as he geared up for a fight.

She leaned back in her chair, shifting the kid so he could watch as Din strode across the cantina. “All right kid,” she said with a grin, “Let’s watch your dad work.”

++++

They hadn’t had any more time to catch up on Taris, as the bounty had to be delivered alive. But she assumed she would see him again, even if just for another few minutes, as soon as the kid figured out how to make it happen.

She wasn’t even surprised to see the _Crest_ landing at the space port on Mimban.

“Let me guess,” she said, leaning against the wall as he strode down the ramp into the landing bay, “The _Crest_ suddenly developed a need for repairs as you were moving through the system?”

She could see him freeze for a moment, and then look down towards the kid in his pram with a long suffering sigh.

“I should stop being surprised,” he said as he closed the distance between them, holding out a hand.

“You really should,” she said with a grin, clasping his wrist in greeting.

“Hey kid,” she said, breaking the moment after she realized that maybe she was holding his strong grip for a little longer than was polite, “How’ve you been?”

The kid babbled at her excitedly.

“Oh yeah?” she said, as if she could understand anything that the kid was saying, “Well you’ve got to start picking your moment better kid. Maybe then we could catch up for more than five minutes at a time.”

“You’re on your way out?” Din asked, and she thought he sounded disappointed.

“Yeah,” she said, well aware that she _was_ disappointed and sure that it was obvious in her tone, “I’ve got to go catch my ride pretty quick.”

“You…you can’t wait until we get the _Crest_ repaired? I could give you a lift,” he sounded hesitant, and it made something flip over low in her gut.

“Can’t,” she said, willfully ignoring how badly she wanted to toss the bounty that was secured in the hold of a freighter willing to take her where she needed to go, “got to go close a job.”

He nodded tightly, and they stood there for a long moment before a confused chirp from the child made her realized that they were just standing there _staring_ at each other.

It felt…different, somehow, and tense, and _exciting_. She was thrown off balance, which she supposed might explain why she stepped forward to wrap her arms around him in an embrace.

After a surprised moment, she felt his beskar clad arms settle around her back.

“Stay safe out there,” she said, her cheek pressed against the cool metal of his breast plate for a moment before she pulled away.

“Cara,” he said, his hands still resting against her hips, “I…” he paused, and she swallowed heavily past a knot in her throat. “You too,” he finally finished a bit weakly.

She nodded, aware that her smile was somewhat thin, and turned to go.

“Dune,” he called, and she turned sharply to look back at him. “Until the next five minutes,” he said.

“Who knows,” she said, her grin now real and wide, “maybe one day I’ll even have six minutes for you!”

++++

When the Imps came back to Nevarro, she couldn’t say it was entirely unexpected. They were still looking for the kid, and they were clearly just looking for information, not to move back in.

The bounty hunters on planet at the time were holding their own, and she held out hope that they might get out of this one, even as she crouched behind an over turned table in the cantina snapping out shots at the storm troopers trying to make their way in.

What _was_ entirely unexpected was the easily recognizable sillouette of Din Djarin moving with steady purpose through the smoke and dust of the fight, taking the troopers by surprise as he came up behind them.

It was over in a matter of minutes after that.

“Cara,” he said as he found her behind the bar, “are you alright?”

She hopped to her feet, favoring her right side where she had caught the edge of a blaster bolt on her thigh.

“What the _hell_ were you thinking!” she hissed at him, “they were _looking_ for you and the child. How could you bring the kid back here!”

“The kid is safe in the _Crest_. And they’re not looking for anyone anymore,” he said with a shrug, “It was my fault that they were here, I put you in danger, and I wasn’t going to leave you to deal with it alone.”

All of her anger deflated at once as the adrenaline of the fight began to fade.

“Well it’s hard for me to argue with you when you put it like that,” she said with a wincing grin as she limped out from behind the bar.

“That was the point,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice as he slipped an arm around her to help her walk. “Come on, let’s get you patched up.”

He was all business as he helped her pull the burnt fabric of her pants off and dropped to his knees to take a look at the injury. She, however, couldn’t help feeling a frisson of excitement up her spine. She willed it away to listen to him.

“It didn’t cauterize well,” he said gruffly, “probably needs to be closed up, but I need to get a better look.”

“What do you mean a better look?” she scoffed. His head was very close to her thigh, and she was very aware of it. It was making it very difficult to ignore her attraction to him, which had been growing in five minute increments over the last few months.

“The helmet’s not great for this sort of thing,” he said casually, “I need to take it off.”

“Woah!” she said, instinctively moving away from him and then wincing as pain shot up her leg, “It’s a blaster burn Din, not a good reason to abandon your _creed_ , kriff!”

He wrapped a hand, gloves already off, around her thigh above her knee to pull her back, “Don’t worry,” he said, sounding amused, “you’re not going to see me.”

He pulled out a strip of medical gauze from the med kit. “Pull your hair back,” he said, as he moved to stand behind her.

She shivered as his breath fell against her neck, but did as he asked. She closed her eyes as he tied the gauze behind her head, blocking out her sight. A moment later, she heard the metallic thud of his helmet against the table.

She felt taut as a bow, her inability to see him making her hyper aware of his movement, of his breathing, of his hands against her skin.

She sucked in a tight breath as she felt his touch on her thigh.

“Okay?” he asked, his voice clearer without the helmet, warmer.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

She could admit, at least to herself, that something about the situation, the blindfold, _him_ was really doing it for her. She willed herself not to squeeze her thighs together, desperate for some friction.

“This might hurt a bit,” he said, his tone low and soft, “ready?”

“Just get it over with,” she said, her eyes screwed tight under her blindfold. She almost looked forward to the pain to distract her from _everything else_ about her current circumstances.

With three quick bursts of pain, he pulled the edges of her wound together, quickly followed by a bacta patch which started to leach away the pain at once.

“Done,” he said, and she could hear by his voice that he was standing. She could feel by the heat of him down her side that he was standing _close_.

“Thanks,” she said, hearing the breathiness of her voice.

Things were quiet for a moment before she felt like she needed to break the tension, “You know,” she tried for casual, “This has got to be at least ten minutes now. We’re ruining our track record.”

“I don’t like our track record,” he said quickly.

“Oh?” she asked.

“Don’t want to see you five minutes at a time,” he said, and she felt him settle beside her, “want you around.”

“Wh...” she swallowed, her throat suddenly dry, “What do you mean ‘around’?”

“Come with me,” he said, in a rush and with an endearing uncertainty, “On the _Crest_. Come with me.”

“You know,” she said slowly, “You ought to be careful. Almost sounds like some sort of romantic declaration.” She meant to make light of it, but it came out serious and soft.

“What if it is?” his voice was quiet and sincere and very close to her.

Her breath left her in a rush, and a fluttering started up low in her gut.

“Well,” she said, her tone not as even as she would like, “I suppose I’d be okay with that on a few conditions.”

“Which are?” and she could hear a little hitch in his voice which told her that maybe he was feeling something close to what she was feeling.

“You promise that we’re partners, you’re not going to try to keep me out of the action.”

“I’m not stupid enough to try anything like that Cara,” he said, his hand reaching out to catch hers.

“You’re not going to compromise the search for the kid’s people, that comes first.”

He squeezed her hand in an unspoken thanks. “Anything else?”

“Just one more thing,” she said with a grin, “we’ve got to get a better blindfold.”

He let out a soft noise from the back of his throat, and then his hand was against her cheek and he was _kissing_ her.

She had thought it would be sort of strange, at first, but it was just like the first time they had fought. They were well matched, in synch, and electric together.

They were both breathing hard when they broke away. She could tell that his gaze was focused on her as he smoothed her hair down under the blindfold.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he let out in a breathless rush.

“Why didn’t you?” she rand her hand up his arm to find his face, her fingers mapping what she couldn’t see, lingering on the smile lines at the corners of his eyes.

He laughed shortly, “How was I supposed to try anything? Couldn’t seem to get more than a few minutes with you.”

“Got lots of time now,” she said, her tone suggestive as she shifted closer to him, hyper aware of her bare legs pressing against beskar as his hands fell against her hips.

“Kriff Dune,” he said, his voice strained, “you have no idea what you do to me.”

“I have some idea,” she said. “Always walked away from those few minutes with you more worked up than I’d like to admit.”

All of a sudden, her back was pressed up against the wall, Din pressed against her at the hips while she heard him unsnapping his breast plate.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, his armor clattering to the floor piece by piece, “Let’s see what I can do with a few more.”

She let out a sharp gasp as his teeth grazed the column of her neck. She could already feel her knees shaking, and she grinned as Din fell to his knees in front of her. She wasn’t entirely sure she’d need more than five minutes at this rate, but she was sure they could find ways to spend the five minutes after that, and the five minutes after that.

In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure that she hadn’t found a way to spend all of the minutes spinning out in front of her. She thought that maybe she should share the thought with Din, but it would keep for five minutes, or a few more.


End file.
